Tobacco is a heavily regulated product. It is regulated under the Tobacco Tax Act to reduce the flow of untaxed products into the contraband market, and this is achieved through requiring a registration certificate for production and sale.

The Applicant in Sobczyk v. Ontario recently asked the Divisional Court to review the decision of the Ontario Ministry of Finance to refuse to issue a registration certificate for the 2021 calendar year. The Application for Judicial Review was dismissed, as the decision was found to be reasonable.

The Applicant is a tobacco farmer who was issued certificates from 2013-2020 on an . . . [more]

Every week we present the summary of a decision handed down by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and considered to be of interest to our readers throughout Canada. SOQUIJ is attached to the Québec Department of Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : L’accusé, qui a donné 1 seul coup de poing au visage de la victime lors d’une querelle dans un cinéma, est acquitté relativement à 1 chef d’accusation d’homicide involontaire coupable; le tribunal a retenu la thèse de la légitime défense puisque la victime a été l’instigatrice du . . . [more]

Each Friday, we share the latest job listings from Slaw Jobs, which features employment opportunities from across the country. Find out more about these positions by following the links below, or learn how you can use Slaw Jobs to gain valuable exposure for your job ads, while supporting the great Canadian legal commentary at Slaw.ca.

Current postings on Slaw Jobs:

• Real Estate Legal Assistant (Full-time) | Abbotsford, BC
  (Waterstone Law Group LLP)
• Litigation Associate (Full-time) | Vancouver, BC
  (Bernard LLP)
• Policy Counsel – Temporary Position – Conseillère ou conseiller en matière de politiques – poste temporaire (Contract role) | Ottawa,

“Any idea can be a great idea if you think differently, dream big and commit to seeing it realized.”
– Richard Branson

I would consider myself an idea person. It’s not a gift. I see it as experience coupled with enthusiasm, curiosity, and most importantly, a complete understanding of how to execute. Surrounding yourself with other idea people and consistently exercising the muscle helps too. Given the nature of the role, legal marketers must be skilled at generating new ideas and supporting other ones across the firm. At Lenczner Slaght, our marketing team is fortunate to have more new ideas . . . [more]

My post in January 2021 introduced the Family Law Unbundled Legal Services Research Project funded by the Legal Aid BC / Law Foundation BC Legal Research Fund. In this post I am very pleased to advise that the report on Phase 1 of the project is now available here.

Quoting from the Executive Summary:

The Family Law Unbundled Legal Services Research Project (ULSRP) is an initiative designed to both evaluate the effectiveness of family unbundled legal services and to facilitate access to justice by enhancing the working relationships between the existing community of ULS providers and BC citizens most in

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on practice, research, writing and technology.

Research & Writing

A Bright-Line Test
Neil Guthrie

This phrase is frequently used by judges and lawyers: there are roughly 400 cases in CanLII which employ it. Notable among them is R v Neil, 2002 SCC 70, where Binnie J applies a bright-line test to identify lawyers’ conflicts of interest. … . . . [more]

Simultaneously and in conjunction, Wolters Kluwer and Thomson Reuters have agreed to sell, in the case of the former, its legal information businesses in France and Spain, and in the latter, its Spanish legal information business, both to Karnov Group. There is change everywhere, as 2022 budget disciplines demand taking out the trash, and little is left in Europe in the hands of the giants.

Conversely, the news that Wolters Kluwer had sold its US academic publishing assets was hardly a surprise. For several years it has been withdrawing from the provision of legal information content. Long gone, in . . . [more]

Technology has not been the panacea to delays in the court system. Ontario has announced $72 million to tackle the backlog, but even then it will likely focus on criminal proceedings, while civil cases continue to languish.

In Innocon Inc. v. Daro Flooring Constructions Inc., Justice Myers of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice indicated at para 80 that motions are being scheduled at least 8 months out in late 2021. Those delays are only expected to get longer in 2022.

The only reasonable and client-focused response to this is for counsel to find practical and effective solutions. . . . [more]

One Sunday each month we bring you a summary from Supreme Advocacy LLP of recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers a weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, to which you may subscribe. It’s a summary of all Appeals, Oral Judgments and Leaves to Appeal granted from November 18 – December 31, 2021 inclusive.

Appeals

Bankruptcy & Insolvency: Compensation/Set-off Between CCAA Debts
Montréal (City) v. Deloitte Restructuring Inc., 2020 QCCA 438, 2021 SCC 53 (39186)

This appeal raises an issue relating to compensation, or set off in a common law setting, between . . . [more]

Is there one piece of legal scholarship which you read years ago that sticks with you? For me it was an article about how a person’s right to legal name changes can be hindered by clerks who may misstate the law or a person’s options. The article is called Changing Name Changing: Framing Rules and the Future of Marital Names, and it was written by Elizabeth F. Emens and published in the University of Chicago Law Review in 2007.^[1] I believe I read it around 2015, and I remember being fascinated by the concept of “desk-clerk law.” In . . . [more]

In light of the Omicron variant, in-person civil jury trials have been suspended in Ontario. This has impacted many cases, which were slated for trial in January 2022. One of these cases was Fraser v Persaud. In Fraser v. Persaud, 2021 ONSC 8429, the motor vehicle accident case was at risk of not being heard in 2022 (7 years post-accident). Therefore, plaintiff counsel requested that the matter proceed virtually. Defence counsel objected to this request. They wanted to have the trial in-person. But, this could push the trial from January 2022 to January 2024.

Justice Richetti ordered that . . . [more]